Have you made your own presets?

[LBTM]

Have you made your own presets to use as a starting point when you start mixing?

I, for example have made presets for everything like: SM7B male vocals, Avantone CV-12 female vocals, Rode NT5 overheads...etc
I don't always leave the presets as are, but some times if you use the same mic on the same instrument you can save a lot of time by making presets of previous albums you've mixed.

 

[Melb_shredder]

Mostly for the tracking phase really. Amp sim pre's for tracking, vocal style pres and so on. I actually always mix quite literally from the ground up when starting a mix. Granted there's processes I ALWAYS do, but I've never had any settings that really work with eachother etc!

 

[Kohugaly]

I have a default session with preprepared track routing and buses with very little processing prepared (for ampsims and midi drums, cos they always sound the same). I also have a "channel strip" preset with my favorite plugins in chain (all with no processing by default). It's something like this: gate&HPF&LPF -> subtractive EQ ->compression ->additive EQ ...I not necessarily use all those plugins in a chain, but seems easier for me to turn stuff off than search it in the endless VST list every time I what to use it.

 

[Sweetnothing]

Yes but only as a starting point, vocals end up having similar chains for example.
Then in the mix everything gets tweaked to fit the source.

 

[The Unavoidable]

I make presets when I find something good that works, but I never ever use them ever again. =(

 

[Charles J]

never, ever do this, haha... i could my sound on the way in via analog eq and comp (and whatever crazy idea i have). that's what the singer hears the whole time while tracking, no plugs or anything at this point... (i slam our 161VU pretttty hard, haha) from there, as someone above mention, I start literally EVERY MIX from an empty session in Nuendo. My analog/digital routing is preset for my VST connections but that's the only thing I keep constant, obviously, hahaha....

Everything else is ALWAYS different... except my 2BUSS, I'm very particular about my 2BUSS chain and it's been the same for a while now... I pretty much end up always using the same plugins.... different setting per mix but mostly my same, coveted top secret 2buss plugs =D

 

[JeffTD]

The only thing I've done is change the default setting on all of my Waves plugins to set the "analog" control to "off." I get enough hiss from VCC/VTM.

 

[Bay Studio]

The only thing I've done is change the default setting on all of my Waves plugins to set the "analog" control to "off." I get enough hiss from VCC/VTM.

^I was gonna say the same thing before i saw your post. haha

 

[LBTM]

I was referring to presets as "custom ready-to-go signal chains", but I've changed the default preset on many plugins too. For example for the EQ I use the most when I load it it has a hi-pass filter.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

I mostly don't need to as I know the settings I most often use by heart, I've always got a template going as far as I/O routing against my console goes though.

 

[LBTM]

Fredrik it's about doing things fast. It's pretty boring every time you load a plugin to set it as you want when it's easy to set the settings you like as defaults.

 

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Fredrik it's about doing things fast. It's pretty boring every time you load a plugin to set it as you want when it's easy to set the settings you like as defaults.

Very true!

 

[Charles J]

The only thing I've done is change the default setting on all of my Waves plugins to set the "analog" control to "off." I get enough hiss from VCC/VTM.

Technical stuff, like this, is the only reason that would interest me in saving default preset chains and I've actually got a few presets that load as default for some plugs but its settings that really have nothing to do with the SOUND.

Every track, song, band is different and I personally find it exhilarting to start from ZERO and let me the mix take me where it wants with NO prior 'plans' as to what kind of chain im going to use....

im sure there are a FEW little chains I could setup to save me time but it doesnt take more than a few seconds to setup Trigger, VCC + VTM settings or any of the others, so it's no biggie. Give me time to listen to the song and react with instinct when I get a cool idea while doing a littttle mundane work.

IDK, different strokes, ya know!! this is just how *I* prefer to go into a mix, mentally, but thats just me and I *may* be crazy, haha

 

[Mikaël-ange]

I was referring to presets as "custom ready-to-go signal chains", but I've changed the default preset on many plugins too. For example for the EQ I use the most when I load it it has a hi-pass filter.

I have my template for mixing.
Always the same layout, color coding, same aux and mult ready to go.
Template can save you lot of time...
When you work on LFAC, you don't re patch everything from scratch don't you?
Same thing for me with PT session.

And yes my mult stay the same mostly. So same eq and comp choice on those...
For exemple on my kick mult (when working analog):
distressor>pultec (low)
TLA100>550A (mid)
160x>1073 (high)
Transient designer or Ds201>8200 (attack)

Same thing for ld vocal (eq>comp>eq):

Massive passive or 1073>CL1B/1176/TLA100>2055
With that kind of chain I can cover every ld vocal I get

And yes, some piece stay on the same setting (some comp mostly, my 160x on kick mult stay at a ratio of 4:1 for example).

The less you have to think about the technical process, the more you can concentrate on the creative process.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Technical stuff, like this, is the only reason that would interest me in saving default preset chains and I've actually got a few presets that load as default for some plugs but its settings that really have nothing to do with the SOUND.

The point behind same layout/template to start with isn't for use the same equalization choice for a given element for exemple.
It's not like you always lift 10k on vocal no matter what.

It's more for time saving and speed.
I'm sure like everyone you do some thing that stay the same for every session, like using some reverb or delay.
Instead of creating and routing your aux from scratch each time, you can save time by having those already here.

 

[LBTM]

The less you have to think about the technical process, the more you can concentrate on the creative process.

Exactly this! When for example I mix a crappy metalcore band I'll always use the same chain on guitars or snare for example because that's what I've found that works the best for the genre and everybody's happy with it. It "always" works so why starting from scratch? Call it "one trick pony" but that's what works best for me. You put your pre-made signal chain since you start, you concentrate on listening and you make small adjustments here and there.

 

[mickrich]

My whole Logic template is a preset.
I have tracks ready for pretty much everything all going to busses with compressors, verbs etc all at my starting points and bypassed.
Once I am finished tracking I turn all the bus fx on and tweak.
My tracks (prior to busses) usually have nothing on them apart from slate trigger on recorded roland triggers and gates on the kick and snare mics.
Busses go to individual outs to my ZED-R16 where I eq and set levels.
May seem like a bad idea but if I start from scratch (mixing in PT when teaching) it usually sounds very similar to a mix from my template.
The advantage is I get through tracking and mixing really quickly and that keeps my studio busy.
Also I can copy/paste audio config between songs in logic and everything lands on the right tracks/busses.

 

[JeffTD]

I will say that my general 2bus starting point (VCC, VTM, Waves Pultec, The Glue, external 2bus comp, voxengo elephant) is saved as a preset and I have most of my FX tracks done as presets so I can highlight 8 of them, load a given chain of delays/verbs/etc that are all pre-eq'd and relatively tailored to what I'm going to be doing. I have a lot of my routing as presets or mixer setting saves as well.

None of this is anything but saving time when loading multiple plugins or changing routing, though - I still go in one by one and tweak each plugin. I think that's what guys like Mikael are saying; of course you're going to tweak for the songs, but everyone has some go to chains they use (albeit with different settings) on just about every mix. Even if you only use half of your preset chain, loading up all and removing half is easier than starting from scratch.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

I will say that my general 2bus starting point (VCC, VTM, Waves Pultec, The Glue, external 2bus comp, voxengo elephant) is saved as a preset and I have most of my FX tracks done as presets so I can highlight 8 of them, load a given chain of delays/verbs/etc that are all pre-eq'd and relatively tailored to what I'm going to be doing. I have a lot of my routing as presets or mixer setting saves as well.

None of this is anything but saving time when loading multiple plugins or changing routing, though - I still go in one by one and tweak each plugin. I think that's what guys like Mikael are saying; of course you're going to tweak for the songs, but everyone has some go to chains they use (albeit with different settings) on just about every mix. Even if you only use half of your preset chain, loading up all and removing half is easier than starting from scratch.

Exactly!